A couple of years ago on the road in London, I met up with a cyclist with a wonderfully tricked-out bike, who's moniker (I later found out - he gave me his card) to be @SonOfTheWinds aka TrafficDroid.

A very friendly fellow two-wheeler, we exchanged small talk and I mentioned a cycling event I was involved with, the famous London Naked Bike Ride, which was due to take place just a week or so after we'd bumped into each other.

He attended the event and make a great YouTube movie of the WNBR. Since then I've been a follower of his accounts on Twitter and YouTube.

@SonOfTheWinds - who on Twitter goes by the name of #TrafficDroid - rides London with various cameras on his bike and on his person, and uploads various videos to YouTube showing the reactions of road users to him, to each other, as well as highlighting the law-breaking and sheer arrogance of some car drivers.

He is a gentleman of the road, always polite despite harassment and verbal abuse. He always stops to help others when he sees a need. His videos speak for themselves.

Recently on Twitter he was poetically expressing his love for two wheels - and I thought his tweets should be repeated. Here, then, are the words of the Traffic Droid, one of the finest explanations of why two wheels are good, from one of the finest gentleman on those two wheels.

Cyclists are free to enrich future generations with less CO2 emissions & increase great society of responsibility.

Cycling made me more and more aware of the environment, expanded my friendships and interactions with people and society.

You only have to watch the movement and verve of a cyclist. It's beautiful. It's symphonic. Poetry in motion. The human scale.

I will never forget the day I received my first commuter bike over 5 years ago now. It was a Dahon Jack. I tasted true freedom.

I became free of public transport, use of taxis & subways. I was in an uncontrollable orgasm of emotional well being. Ecstatic!

Cycling is the antidote to financial bleeding, it puts more food on the table and reinforces the fabric of being a human being.

Andwhen I remarked on Twitter that he was being very poetic this evening, he described it as thus:

The culmination of the salad of this weeks commute tossed in the olive oil of experience.

That's classy.

Oh, and yeah - if you see a big 6ft guy on a tricked-out cycle waving a red card at you on the road - that just means you've done something pretty dumb. Here's one of my favourites:

Wednesday, October 02, 2013

An IT veteran with an address book full of other experts, he has examined the history of software - right back to the beginnings of Colossus, and come up with a Top 12 list that's hard to argue with.

For each item, he highlights the flaws as well as the triumphs. In the week in which UNIXtechnically reaches the grand old age of 40, this article really should be compulsory reading for those under-25 who seem to think that there only *ever* was Windows and Apple OS.